‘You see.’ Her hand was trembling as she showed me the display. ‘It’s him. He will want me to return home now. I will have to go.’ She was suddenly in disarray as she started to pull her coat on, all anxiety. ‘He likes to know where I am every hour of every day.’

I had one last chance to ask the questions I really needed to, and took a deep breath. ‘Does he lock you in?’

‘Who?’

‘Your father,’ I murmured. ‘I thought – did I see you upstairs at the manor?’

She stared at me. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘yes, he does lock me in occasionally. And if I do not go home, he sends someone to retrieve me.’

‘Who?’ I asked urgently. ‘Danny Callendar?’

She kept gazing at me until I felt an eerie chill.

‘Danny,’ she repeated. ‘Yes, he sends Danny sometimes. Sometimes other people. Sometimes men or family from home.’

She stared at me. I saw a light sweat break out across her face. I couldn’t tell if she understood what I meant; but I held her gaze. She was broken, like a beautiful vessel that had cracked fatally, but was still just about in one piece. Her phone bleeped again.

‘I’m sorry, but I really have to go.’

‘Can you – would you tell me the beliefs you just mentioned? About your boyfriend?’ I said quickly. ‘About what happened.’

Her almond eyes filled with tears. ‘I can’t speak of Nadif yet. It is … ‘ she clutched the green coat shut across her chest, ‘it is too painful. It is killing me.’ She started to slide out of the booth, a waterfall of sleek hair falling across her pinched unhappy face.

I reached over and put my hand on her arm. ‘Maya, I just want to know – why, why did you say your father was a murderer?’

‘That’s simple.’ Maya Kattan put her dark glasses back on. ‘I said my father was a murderer because he is. Because he killed Nadif. You ask him, if you dare.’ She was standing now. ‘I must go. Thank you for lunch.’

And she was gone, out into the bright sunlight of Marylebone High Street in her high heels and diamonds. I noticed she walked with a slight limp; I remembered her kicking her father’s car outside the manor house. Her words rang in my ears: ‘Because he killed Nadif.’

I felt an urgent need to speak to my children. I phoned my mother from the table and spoke to Alicia and Effie. Freddie refused to come to the phone because he was ‘busy, Mummy’, drawing Spiderman, apparently. I told the girls I’d see them all tomorrow and how much I missed them; judging by the excited squeals it wasn’t much reciprocated.